McHenry County judge grants preliminary injunction to halt Lake in the Hills Sanitary District purchase

WOODSTOCK – A McHenry County judge again has halted efforts by the Lake in the Hills Sanitary District to purchase about 14 acres of Kane County farmland for more than $950,000.

[H. Rick Bamman]

Judge Thomas Meyer granted a preliminary injunction after a hearing Wednesday that prevents the deal from going through. The McHenry County State's Attorney's Office and County Board Chairman Jack Franks, D-Marengo, consider the decision a victory.

Franks has claimed the proposed land deal under the district's previous board was an effort to impede consolidating the board into the village of Lake in the Hills.

Meyer issued a temporary restraining order last month after the county filed a motion asking the court to recognize that the two new sanitary district trustees were legitimately appointed by the County Board, and that their votes to rescind the land deal and a related annexation stand.

A trial will be Sept. 19 to determine whether the sanitary district had the authority to annex the property.

"The county pushed for the injunction after this independent taxing district took extraordinary steps to prevent a proposed consolidation aimed at reducing expenses and increasing government efficiency," McHenry County State's Attorney Patrick Kenneally said in a news release.

[Sarah Nader]

Franks wrote a law during his final term as a state lawmaker that allows McHenry and Lake county boards to eliminate governments that are entirely within their respective counties and if the boards appoint a majority of the trustees.

"The outrageous actions taken by the sanitary district to preserve their fiefdom makes this unit of government the poster child as to why consolidation is needed," Franks said in a news release. "If a taxing body feels the need to spend millions of dollars to snatch up a patch of land to silence even discussion of consolidation, it speaks volumes about whether that body is even necessary."

Gov. Bruce Rauner signed a law Monday that gives every county in the state the authority to consolidate government if such rules apply.

Records have shown that two members of the district's three-member board of trustees, Terry Easler and Shelby Key, planned in the months after Frank's election as board chairman in November to annex the entire right of way of Square Barn Road and purchase 13.88 acres in Kane County about a mile and a half from its service area.

[Sarah Nader]

This purchase would make the sanitary district a multicounty district, which would make it exempt from the consolidation law and take away the County Board's power to appoint its trustees.

About 40,000 residents in Lake in the Hills, Crystal Lake and Huntley are served by the 11-square-mile district, which voters created in 1963 to handle wastewater management and pollution control.

Key and Easler voted April 27 to annex the property. Former Trustee David McPhee, who resigned shortly after his January appointment to the Lake in the Hills Village Board, previously told the Northwest Herald that expanding into Kane County was never discussed during his nearly nine years on the sanitary district board.

The County Board appointed Eric Hansen and Kyle Kane to replace McPhee and Key, whose term was up April 30.

Key and Easler are both being represented by lawyer Derke Price, who was unavailable for comment Thursday.

Price claims the annexation and proposed purchase already make the sanitary district a multicounty entity, which means the board did not have the authority to appoint new trustees, and the vote to undo the annexation and land deal would be invalid.

"The District has been planning an expansion for three years," Price wrote in his response to the county board's motion in July. "Franks' entire argument is that the District should not have exercised its lawful annexation powers to expand in Kane County because that thwarts his political goal to gobble up the district into a village or the county."